The first course under my organization is over and I hope that everybody enjoyed it. We had 24 participants from Belgium, Germany, Holland, England, Austria, Hungary and South Africa. You can find one difference between the two pictures

Before we started

We faced some problems before the workshop. Karel was hospitalised for cardiac surgery just before to course, he got two bypasses, but  he was all right after the surgery and he visited us, so it is good and he is keeping well, good luck Karel.

I attended team-building in Austria during the weekend just before the workshop and I injured by back during white-water rafting, I spend whole course on 4 ibuprofen pills daily…

Adrian from South Africa had attended World Fly fishing Championship in Slovenia before the workshop and he was travelling to Rožmberk already on Sunday. I found relatively comfortable train connection from Ljubljana for him and arranged transport from Rybnik station, which is about 10 km far from Rožmberk, but he did not arrived … so I called to hotel in Slovenia and they told me, that he left hotel in the morning for train … more over, by the way from Austria I had call from Marc Sonc, which was caught over-speeding by Police in Germany and they withdrew him driving licence … you can imagine, how he looked forward to workshop as he was going 190 km/hour in the stretch with 120 limit  …  Mark finally found flight to Linz airpot on Monday and I arranged transport to Rožmberk for him, but they lost his luggage …  luggage was delivered to Rožmberk on Tuesday … and I had call from hotel Růže Rožmberk at lunch time on Monday, that Adrian appeared there. He asked conductors in train in Germany to help with transfers few times, but he got wrong info, so he arrived to Munchen, he complained and he got ticket in first call  for free to Rybnik and he was there on Monday morning. He had no Czech currency and his mobile phone did not worked, so he was walking with luggage the 10 km to Rožmberk

Day1 - Thuesday 12. June

By the journey to Rožmberk I had to visit hospital for injection … but everybody including all members of our team was  in Rožmberk at 18:00 and we could open the course. We had good team, Martin, Luboš, Pavel and Michal belongs to the absolutely top fly-fishermen in Czech.  After dinner we had introductory lecture after few beers we went to bets as we started in the early morning.

Day 2 – Wednesday 13. June

We had breakfast  at 7 and we had demonstration of nymphing techniques  in Rožmberk  in the morning and next all attendants can fish together with guides. In cooperation with South Bohemian Board of Czech Angling Union, it was was stocked 200 kg of nice rainbows to the catch & release stretch in Rožmberk before the course, so everybody caught good fish. Franta Hanak supplied 10 special nymphing rods and everybody can test it and finally to buy it with 50% discount, which was very appreciated and all rods were sold. The only problem was, that water increased after night rain and it was muddy, so river was  unfishable at about lunch time .

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After lunch we spread in the fishery Vltava 29 including Trophy part, fish were active and everybody caught nice browns and some brook trouts.

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In the evening started fly-tying lessons, every member of our team had duty for one evening and I have to say, that they shoved some patterns, which I as their rival could never see Martin had first lesson and the top of the evening were jigs with CDC hackle and olive emergers size 18.

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Day 3 – Thursday 14. June

All rivers were still high and we spend whole day in fishery Vltava 29, which flows from lake and therefore is there stable flow and clear water whole year. In lower parts were caught also rainbows and coarse fish, we tested different types of nymphing and also dry-fly as fish were rising whole day. It started to be warmer and no more rain was expected and rivers were getting lower. Vltava in Vyšší Brod was also cleaner and some attendants decided to try evening hatch, fish were actively rising, but fishing was tricky, they could not find a right pattern. Luboš leaded tying lesson and he shoved also some secret patterns for lake fishing. Adrian had book full of notes, I guess that if the WFCH would have took part after the workshop, Adrian could have finised at least in top 50.

Day 4 – Friday 15.June

Martin came up with great idea to sent three groups to whole day trip to Volyňka river, which is a litlle far from Rožmberk, but it was already fishable and it is full of fish. Rob told me, that he probably caught 100 fish. I got pictures from Rudy, thank you.

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Me and Michal were fishing with two Belgian groups in Vltava 28 and Trophy part at Vltava 29. Fishing was good, we again tested nymphs and also dries.

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During great lunch in Lesanka Pub in Vyšší Brod, we  had also short language course, as river was full of rafts at lunch time and my friends asked me, for what they are asked and what to answer :

Question from raft: “Berou? “(does the fish take?)

Answer:  1) if there are nice girls inside: “Moc ne, tak koukám na kozy” (nothing special, so I´m looking at breasts
2) if no girl is inside and raft is already downstream: “Jdi do píči” (fuck you)

We found dragon flies just hatching at the stone in the middle of the river, so I´m adding some pictures

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We went for evening rise to trophy part at Vltava 29, I have no too much pictures, we simply had no time to make pictures and everybody caught a lot of fish including browns and brook trouts over 40 cm, simply one of the best days in the year. I finished with Dirk at place, where the mouth of the big pool was dammed by a fallen three. 4 fish were rising in the windows between sunken wings. We caught all of them, and after 5 minutes another 4 fish were rising. We caught them … and after 5 minutes were there another  4 fish … they simply waited in lines for the best places in the pool and for our flies

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Day 5 - Saturday 16.June

Smaller rivers were already good, so we sent three groups to whole day trip  to Vltava 33 and I took with Michal two groups to Malše river. Vltava was clear but a little red (from peat) and high, very good were smaller gold-head nymphs and also dry fly, all people caught also grayling. I have no pictures from the trip to Vltava34, so I found some of them in my archive.

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Malše was also good, it was only very hot and some people decided to go to hotel after two hours of fishing. In the evening we had grill party, I prepared new diplomas for everybody and Marc Sonc got cake as he celebrated his birthday.

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Day 6 – Sunday 17.June

Last day we spent in Vltava 27  in Rožmberk, which was already fishable and fish were hungry, Michal even caught rainbow with another fly in the mouth. Some people also visited trophy part at Vltava 29 and finished with evening hatch in Rožmberk.

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Accommodation and other things

In my opinion, the only problem was dinners, everybody could choice from 4 meals but it was difficult to organise it and it was also difficult for chef to cook it, next year everybody will have same menu. Closing grill party was perfect, lunches were great and also hotel was good. Jürgen called Dentist as he is dentist asked me, why the hotel staff cleans rooms every day. I answered, that they know fishermen and they know that after two days are rooms uncleanable  :-)  He told me, that he dumped some flies to floor in the morning and he found all flies folded on white napkin

In the hotel Romantic is no pub, so I brought keg of Czech traditional beer for fly-tying evenings. But I underestimated Belgian and German groups and 100 beers was away already second evening … but in the hotel was good supply of bottled beer

I hope, that everybody enjoined the week and learned something, thanks to everybody for great approach, thanks to guides for great work and we can look forward to next year. You can book date 11.-16.June 2013. Tight Lines !!!

I emailed everyone the flyer for this masterclass early in the year but no-one took up the offer. You missed a great value fishing holiday with lots of opportunity to learn new things and fish different waters, very different to Somerset & Wiltshire.
Not only was there no-one else from the club there, there was no-one else from the UK. The only other Brit currently lives in Belgium and there were two other Belgians, 3 Dutch, a German, a Finn, a Canadian and an Australian. Quite a group. We had Milan Hladik & Karel Krivanec as organisers/guides, Milan also acting as translator for Jiri Klima, the master.
The course was based in the very picturesque village of Rozmberk in South Bohemia, near the Austrian border. This is built around a couple of big bends in the sizable river Vltava which eventually becomes considerably bigger as it flows through Prague. We were to fish it a lot from here to an hours drive away in the national park where it is considerably smaller.
The atmosphere was very relaxed, nice hotel right on the river, excellent weather and the beer was ok though it turns out that everywhere seems to be tied to one of the big breweries so it was hard to find the variety of good beers that Czech is known for. That had to wait until I spent a day in Prague on the way home.
On the first morning we were encouraged to head out at first light and do our own thing. This was were I discovered that wading in big rivers with large round boulders on the bottom can be a challenge. A wading staff is very useful, bad decision not to have one. I caught a couple of trout and a grayling in this hour long session (I got up a bit late). After breakfast we had the classroom session with Jiri explaining leader set up and fly choice, preferred rods and how to read a river.
Fishing during the day was a challenge because of huge numbers of canoes, kayaks & inflatable boats that were on the water. They tended to start at about 10am and finish about 6pm so during the day we would go further afield to fish. On this first day we had a relaxing afternoon followed by a fly tying lesson and early dinner and then went upstream to fish
the evening rise. This rise was awesome. It was a caddis rise that started about 8pm with it being too dark to continue after 9.30pm. Sadly it had already been going for a week so the fish were not really suicidal and many people struggled to catch which was very frustrating when there are fish rising all around you. I like fishing alone but here we had about 50 yds, or less, between anglers. However, due to the volume of fish in the river you really didn’t need to move more than a few yards to keep covering fish for the full 90 minutes. By the end of the session the water surface was literally covered with shucks, not sure how the fish picked out my fly. I struggled for the first 45 minutes until I put on a #16 grey F-Fly (#14 would have been better size) then caught 11 fish. Using just that fly I managed to get into double figures every night. Most of the fish were brown trout of about 1.5lb with a few bigger.
Each day then followed the same pattern, up early and fish around the hotel, breakfast, drive somewhere away from the boats to fish, lunch, more fishing, back to hotel for dinner, off to evening rise, back for some tying and well earned Czech lager. On the first two days Jiri was with us and spent time with everyone showing them his nymphing technique – and rescuing me from the middle of the river when I was really struggling to wade anywhere. In my defence there was larger volume of water that day being released from the dam upstream. In spite of my wading problems I was one of the few people not to swim during the week (so perhaps this is a venue for the more agile club members).
As shown I fished the two nymphs on a short leader without any sight indicators that I normally use, the end of the flyline working very well as an indicator and within a few sessions was no longer missing takes. The water we fished ranged from the wide Vltava to the upstream beats which included a very steep boulder garden—real pocket water— open meadows, smaller rocky tree covered sections like a West Country river. We also fished the Malse which was again enclosed and small. On this river I had a great close encounter with an otter which was fishing the same pool as me probably explaining why I only caught one fish in it and that one was in fact on when I spotted the otter. Sadly it didn’t take too long for him to spot me and he quickly disappeared.
I really struggled with fishing nymphs in the boulder gardens and resorted to large dries guided round the pools on a short line. Surprisingly good fun and quite productive.
All in all a tremendous week and very educational. I only blanked in one short morning session below the dam otherwise averaged 30 fish a day with the worst session being 3 and the best 39 so there is no shortage of fish. They do stock the main river and the rainbows they put in give a really good fight in fast water. I also caught, browns, my first brook trout, grayling, ide, chubb, dace. Even had my first double—two browns on at the same time. Given that all the food & transport was included it was excellent value for money (550 euros plus getting to & from Rozmberk but Easyjet fly to Prague from Bristol). Would I go again, definitely. I was considering doing just that next year in fact but have heard that the guy who started this is planning a dry fly masterclass in France, though that will inevitably be more expensive as it is in the Eurozone—no more pints of beer for less than a £1.

(published at Tauton Fly Fishing Club Newsletter, No. 20, Nov 2009)

This article is a rough translation of an article that was first published in Finnish language in the magazine “Pohjolan perhokalastaja” 2/2010.

I found the Czech Nymphing Masterclass accidentally. A certain website was advertising this course and a CD, which was filmed at one of the previous courses. For some reason the course came back to my mind every now and then. Finally, I ordered the CD. After seeing the CD and having had a thought about the matter, I decided to apply to the course. This is how I accidentally ended up to a place called Rozmberk nad Vltavou in Czech in the summer 2009.
The course started when Robert Borrenbers visited Czech because of nymphing. He was amazed about the effectiveness of the technique and he thought that everybody should have a change to learn it. This is why he organized the first Czech Nymphing Masterclass during the year 2003. In the beginning Jan Siman was the master and in year 2005 Jiri Klima became the master. In year 2009 Robert handed the responsibility of organizing the course to Karel Krivanec and Milan Hladik. Nowadays, Robert  focuses in promoting the course.

CNM 2009
In the first evening everybody introduced themselves and told about their own fishing interests. Milan also gave a lecture about fishing in Czech, fishing licenses and the status of the fish populations. The actual course began the next day when Jiri held his comprehensive lecture. Jiri talked about equipment, flies, leaders, tactics, moving and also technique and controlling the flies. At right in the beginning we were told that this course was just a start and that everybody will eventually find their own way of fishing. In my opinion Jiri’s technique differs a bit from what is commonly understood by Czech nymphing (in Finland). Jiri always holds some of flyline on the water and sometimes he fishes from quite a distance. Jiri also uses relatively short rods. A general advise was to keep the equipment in balance and to use some time for thinking process. The most important features of the fly are the right weight and size. They said that fish do not like too heavy flies. According to Jiri, the actual pattern is not so important. He thinks that the most important thing in fishing is the ability to read water. However, this is something that cannot really be taught, it is something that develops by time and practice. For once there was a lecture where I didn’t feel sleepy even once! After the lecture we tied some flies according to Jiri’s guidance. Later Jiri also gave a demonstration at the river about his technique in practice. There he fished in different ways and at the same time he was telling us what he was doing and why. The next three days Jiri was fishing among the students teaching every student personally.
During the course we were divided into small groups and transported to different places to fish. Every time there was enough space and privacy to fish. Usually the day consisted of two official fishing periods. In the evenings there was a change go fishing to a nearby river or stay at the hotel and rest. The organizers made sure that nobody fished at the same place twice. Every time when we went fishing we went to a new beat.
During the course we were fishing in many different kinds of rivers or beats. At the upper part of one small and rocky stream the fishing was nice and quiet sneaking. It was really nice pocket water. Although the river was narrow there was still a plenty of deep holes. I was advised to make a short leader, at maximum one and a half meters long. The flies and fish were small. Here Jiri was fishing very carefully. He was sneaking and staying low all the time. Czechs obviously are not afraid of going on their knees when it comes to fishing.
At a special trophy part it was allowed to use only one fly. The fishing was there more challenging but when I changed to a fly that was heavy enough, I started to catch fish. Although, after that I started to fumble, the flies were stuck in the bottom all the time and I even managed to drop them into water from my hand. On top of everything I lost a lot of small and very energetic fish. Milan released,  as always, plenty of fish from his flies also here.

For a while I fished with Jiri at the wide part of the river Vltava. The current was strong and steady there. Maybe the place was chosen because it was easy to give personal guiding to the students there. Before fishing I made my leader according to Jiri’s instructions, and it felt really short considering the current and the depth of the river. If not counting only few accidentally caught fish, I caught nothing. However, the canoos floating past in the river brought their own little nice addition. In Czech canooing is very very very amazingly popular hobby. During one week I saw at least thousands of canoos. Every available piece of land at the Vlatava river banks were filled with tents of canooing people. Because of this, the fishing was being tried to schedule in a way that the canoos would disturb us as little as possible. For the first time in my life there were canoos floating down the river on both sides of me when I was fishing in the middle of the river. Every paddler was not that skillfull or maybe they had had some ”joy-juice”. In any case they were happy people with whom it was nice to change greetings, although we didn’t understand each other.
At one small and shallow creek I had an opportunity to see some big graylings but they couldn’t have cared less about my flies. Fishing was again nice sneaking upstream there. I used very small flies and the thinnest tippet I had. The fish I caught were small but I lost one really nice trout.
It was interesting to see how well small graylings disappeared in to the really shallow water. I was fishing a small stream where the current was slow and where the bottom was relatively flat. The bottom was mainly gravel. I was fishing with very fine tippets and small flies. Even I could easily see the bottom, I couldn’t know if there were any fish or not.
At one river a big fish was smashing small fish into the air a few times. For a while I was swearing because I had only nymphs and dries with me. The river was relatively flat but it had a fairly temperate current. I couldn’t see any big stones. On the way to this place there lives a dog, which Karel has written about. I heard that if you drive too fast the dog will bite cars tires. Me and one Canadian guy were  trying to get Karel speeding but this time Karel wanted to spare his tires. From the river I got small graylings and one grayling which was slightly less than 40 centimeters.  When I was walking back to the meeting point a small deer scared me. I was really close to the deer when it started  jumping away. It couldn’t just run because the grass was so high. It was a funny looking thing and it made me smile. Later Milan told that the big smashing fish was probably an asp.
During the last official fishing day I got a good example of how well our hosts know their waters. We were able to decide where we wanted to fish. I wanted to go back to the area where I had been fishing the previous day because there were some observations made of better size graylings. Karel told me that in the beginning of the fishing I should move relatively fast. He told me how much time I should spend for the first 400 meters.

In the beginning I was catching a lot of small trouts. Some times I made several casts so that I always had at least some contact to fish. However, the nature of the river changed distinctively down stream. It became wider and it was more calm. There were fewer fish but they were graylings and they were nicer. This was exactly what I hoped for and Karel knew this. He wanted to make sure that I didn’t get stuck with the small trouts.
During the evenings there usually was nice pupa and dry fly fishing at a small driving distance from the hotel. One time I had an opportunity to see a really nice hatch but I caught only few fish. The hotel was on the river and there was nice fishing water at a walking distance. In the morning of the departure I went fishing rainbows close to the hotel. With a longing mood I released my last rainbow and walked back to the hotel to pack my luggage.
During the course I caught rainbows, trouts, graylings and chubs. I also got some roach-looking fish, which I didn’t recognize. I have started my fly fishing by fishing chubs and I still fish them actively. That is the reason why I was thinking “what goes around comes around” when I was smiling and releasing my first chub in Czech.
I had aftma 4 rods with me and in my opinion there is no point using heavier rods. The fishing would probably be nicest with aftma 2 rod, which is now at my wish list. Jiri uses aftma 2 rod and floating DT line. During the course I used tippets between 0.14 mm and 0.08 mm. In some places it didn’t pay of to use tippet thicker than 0.10 mm. Although the tippets sound really thin, they didn’t feel like it. The fish were often small and normally the flies were small, too. Besides, a good quality monofil line is surprisingly strong when the knots are good and well tied. The flies I used were beadheads, the largest were tied to a 10 size hook and the smallest ones to size 20. The colors varied also a lot. In addition, some of the flies were light and some were very heavy. So the range of the flies was quite broad.
Jiri is the central character in advertising the course but Milan’s participation should not be underestimated. Milan showed several nice demonstrations about different techniques. I don’t know if it was a coincidence, but every time when I saw Milan’s demonstration he caught a lot of fish. Although, according to Milan, not all of his demonstrations were that successful. In any case at least I was impressed about his fishing.
Although Czech nymphing was the ground of the course, they didn’t try to claim that one technique was better or more correct than the other ones. For example, they introduced also dry fly and pupa fishing. Both Jiri and Milan said many times that eventually everybody will learn a technique that suits them best. Jiri also said that a good (competing) fisher must be versatile, and they have to know many different techniques.
I didn’t fly to Czech just because of a fishing course, it was also a fishing holiday for me. Fishing was easy because eating, accommodation, fishing places, time schedule and guiding were all well organized. This is the reason why I don’t have any accurate memories about the names of the places where I fished. I just didn’t care and I didn’t have to care. I jumped into the car, which was pointed to me and just saw where it took me. I was fishing at least at Vltava and Malse rivers and maybe somewhere else, too. Although it was a fly fishing course there was still enough time to fish in your own privacy. There was also plenty of fishing and it was well scheduled. I have sometimes a bad habit to spend too much time at the river and therefore I do not rest enough. Now the balance between fishing and resting was just perfect.
The course is organized also year 2010. If you are interested in the possible course in 2011, there is information about the courses at Karel’s website www.czechnymphs.com. From the website you can see the program for the course 2010.

Czech Nymphing Masterclass, instructors.

Doctor Karel Krivanec started fly fishing competitions tens of years ago. His best achievement is second place in the first championships in Czechoslovakia. Five times he has been in the qualifications for the national team. Karel is very strongly involved in different organizations activities; besides Czech competitions he has been organizing also international competitions. He has also been the manager of Czech national team, the president of Czech fishing committee and for 12 years the manager of South Bohemian fishing region. The most famous achievement is perhaps his the classic book “Czech Nymph and Other Related Fly Fishing Methods”. Karel has also written many articles for fishing magazines and he has been fishing around the world. Karel was the head of a laboratory, which was doing research on parasites and fungal infections. Nowadays he is retired.

Milan Hladik is a doctor of hydrobiology. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis about fish migration between reservoirs and rivers. His current work is related to improving water ecosystems. This involves revitalization of rivers, building of fish passages and improving of natural habitats. As a part-time job Milan continues the work Karel started as the manager of the South Bohemian fishing region, trying to promote the modern attitude towards sport fishing. The last 15 years Milan has been practising fly fishing very actively. His fly fishing is very versatile. Milan has been fishing and competing in many European countries. He has also been organizing the yearly Hanak Open fly fishing competition. Milan likes to take photographs and he has taken photos for Karel’s book. In addition, Milan writes articles about fish ecology and fly fishing regularly for Czech fishing magazines.

Jiri Klima has been the coach and captain of the Czech national team between 1993 and 2008. During that time their team has won 5 gold medals, 3 silver medals and 2 bronze medals in the world championships. In the European championships they got one medal of each color. In addition they have won individual medals, 4 gold, one silver and 5 bronze. Jiri has also been awarded as the best Czechoslovakian flytier. He has patented many fly fishing innovations like weighted hooks.

On the recommendation of John Woods I set off for the Czech Republic in June 2010 for a week of Czech nymphing and instruction. Accompanied by my fishing accomplice from Denmark, Lars Hanson, we arrived in Rozmberk after a three hour taxi ride in pouring rain. Glimpses en-route of the Vltava river were not encouraging. It was running bank high and brown.
The accommodation at the hotel on the riverside was completely taken up by us and twenty two other anglers. A briefing and talk in the tackle shop/fly tying room set us up for the next day when, sorted by nationality/language we were taken in groups of three or four to the river for an  impressive Czech nymph demo by Jiri, one of the instructors and organisers of the event.
The rain had stopped but the main river was still unfishable so we were taken in cars to various small forest streams and headwaters for our first session. Armed with newly purchased nymphs Lars and I managed to fool enough small brook and browns to feel that we could be in for an interesting week. One of the boulder strewn streams we nick-named =Death Valley‘ and, although very agile, I wished that I was ten years younger than my 70. Drowning in the shallow pools was unlikely but broken limbs a distinct possibility. We rescued a large German angler who had fallen between two boulders. Luckily, the only breakage was his rod but he nursed some serious bruises to his nether regions.
The main river quickly settled down and was now fishable so several sessions were held at various sites within a few miles of the hotel. I was rather hoping to catch some of the large grayling in the main river but only managed each day to catch one very large dace (No, not small chub). These dace are much larger than any that I have caught in UK in recent years and were the subject of some teasing as nobody else caught any. Evening after dinner was spent at the large weir adjacent to the hotel trying for some very lively rainbows.
The highlight of the week for all of us was one day in the tightly controlled reserve towards the Austrian border, quite a long drive from base. Lars and I were dropped off twenty minutes walk from the upper Vltava which narrows here to about seven to ten yards and looks for all the world like an English lowland chalk stream. We spent several minutes just looking then Lars announced that he thought that he had died and woken in heaven. Heaven it was. Apart from two canoes passing through we seemed to have the whole of southern Bohemia to ourselves for the day. After a couple of small grayling I was into a much larger fish which, much to our surprise, turned out to be a very large roach. It was a magnificent fish around 2lbs+. 
What I now so dearly wanted was a large grayling and this came after a fishless hour when I returned to our start point and was immediately into a good fish. It was just what I wanted, a grayling measuring 17 ˝ inches from fork to nose. Not having a set of scales and being unfamiliar with the weight of large grayling, we quickly returned it to the water. The end of a beautiful day on a river bounded by natural wildflower meadows and the sky full of larks in full song. Only a very small number of day permits are issued for this water and the organisers of the event ensured that all the participants had a day there.
In conclusion, there is much more to tell but much has already been told in John‘s 2009 article – if you intend to follow our footsteps, take note of the need for a strong wading staff. Not being as young as I would like, my faithful rucksack/chair was a boon and also came in handy whilst waiting in the Ryanair scrum at Stanstead (our Bristol Easyjet flight had been cancelled at short notice).
To circumvent the high luggage charges and sporting equipment‘ charges, we took only cabin bags (my chair/rucksack fits even Ryanair‘s cabin baggage measuring frame). Neither of us could afford multi-section travel rods so we put all rods, waders, boots, staffs etc. into one large borrowed snowboard bag. That cost Ł80 each way but our flight tickets were only Ł7.49 one way and Ł9.49 for the return. The return taxi from Prague was a luxury as the journey could be made by train or coach. A closer airport is Linz, Austria, but there could be problems in taking an Austrian hire car into the Czech Republic. There were no cheap flights to Lintz at the time.
Summary: Good grub; poor range of beers; Don‘t even try the wine; good friendly accommodation; great atmosphere; brilliant instruction; we are never too old to learn.
The website is awaiting updating but this year‘s dates are September 12 – 18th. Email for information – Karel-k@post.cz

(published at Tauton Fly Fishing Club Newsletter, www.tauntonflyfishing.co.uk)

As we organised the European Fly Fishing Championship in Rožmberk in June, we decided to make Masterclass in September. I have to say, that it was a good idea, fishing was a little different but great. Group again consisted of a “Benelux” team and a “German” one completed by Kai, Jänö and a few guys from UK, Canada and the USA. We also invited new members of our organisational team, Martin Musil, Jiří Pejchar and Luboš Roza and it was very appreciated by all participants, as they all belong to the top fly-fishermen in the Czech Republic. We were fishing again mainly the Vltava 27 and 28, but we also visited the Malše and the Černá rivers, the Vltava 29P and the Vltava 33P. Nymphing in the Vltava 28 was not easy, we had to fish with tipped of diameter 0,12 mm. At Vltava 33P, fish were rising in waves through whole day and we enjoyed both fishing with very small nymphs and fine equipment and also with dries. The rod size 2 was the best choice for this day. Beautiful fishing was also in the Vltava 29P, as brown trout and also brook trout had nice colours as they were already preparing for spawning. We also made one trip to a trophy fishery the Vltava 24 with the ”German” group. Morning was hard as water was low and clear and sky was bright, but finally all fishermen caught a big rainbow and some of them caught more than ten big fish. One guy was snapped at least five times . I developed nymphing method “Cast and step” as all beginners made the same mistake, they spent a lot of time on the same place. During nymphing, mainly in the big river, it is necessary to explore as much water as possible to find active fish, so it is good to make one step after every second cast. At one pool I was sitting at the bank as a conductor and organised fishing of my small group and finally everybody found a fish there.

Six participants attended a fly-fishing competition called Rožmberský Cup and compared skills with the top Czech anglers. Advantage of this competition is, that every competitor fishes three times one hour and after every session made judge in the same beat, where he had been already fishing, so everybody can see, how and where the other competitors fish and how they make mistakes.

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We had again “Benelux” group which was enlarged by Gerald Purinton from USA, Jänö Kiss from Hungary and returning Finish guy Kai and we started cooperation with Rudi Kopf, who brought “German” group. Problem was relatively high flow in all rivers after heavy rain, but fishing was good.

I remember one day in the Vltava 33. I was fishing with Paul Canning from England, fishing was not bad, but also nothing special. Very nice experience was a hutch of big stoneflies, which always flew up all together in approximately one hour intervals; it was amazing to see so many big flies looking like helicopters in the air. But fish were absolutely apathetic. We were resting on the bank and suddenly I heard rising fish somewhere underfoot. I raised my head out from grass and I saw a small ring close to the bank behind a big stone. Since I knew this place, I expected good grayling. I took out nymphs from my French leader and put sedge to the point. Casting was not easy with this system, but it worked,  Paul called it “French dapping”. Problem was that the fish was not interested in my flies and took continuously something different. I tried about 10 flies without any success and next I saw a small black stonefly sitting on the surface in front of fish and fish took it. I found one small black sedge with peacock body in my box and casted it one and half meter above the fish. We both were watching, what would happen. When the fly reached to the fish territory, nice grayling did not wait and took it seriously … and snapped my leader, which was probably damaged during nymphing. I found another same fly in my box and gave it to Paul as a memory for this nice day. Later I fortunately caught another good grayling and Paul could make a few pictures.

One early foggy morning we were fishing in the river under the hotel with Kai, Paul and Rudi, Rudi got big rainbow from bank on streamer and had to run after the fish downstream. Me and Kai were nymphing under the weir and we got a lot of fish, as this place was not fished during past days because of high flow.

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We had a relatively small group consisting as usually of “Benelux” and “UK” fishermen completed by Kai Kalio from Finland and by Keefer Pitfield, a competitor and fishing guide from Canada.

One evening I was fishing with two Dutch guys Rob Pronk and Peter Way below Vyšší Brod. Flow was relatively high, so I decided to find a better place in a channel, which is shallow and good fishing is there only during higher flow. We caught few trouts on dry, but I decided to show my friends how to fish with wet flies. I made setup with one classical March Brown at the point and another one at the upper dropper and with one leaded March Brown in the middle. I casted across the current below the bush at the opposite bank and immediately after the flies fell to the water, a good brownie took the point fly. The second cast to the same place brought another good brownie and the third cast was rewarded by a nice rainbow of about 40 cm. I saw another big shadow following flies in the water. My friends did not wait a minute and decided to try it, I gave them all of my March Browns. Rob remained at the same place and me and Peter moved a little downstream. After 10 minutes Rob finished his setup and tried to cast, we were watching. After one second another big rainbow jumped from water and snapped Rob´s leader. After next ten minutes the same situation, one cast, three jumps and another good fish was free with my fly in mouth. I looked to my fly-box and saw empty line in wet-flies section and said to Peter: “I thing, I will have to tie this evening … “

We also spent nice days at the Vltava 33 P and at the Malše river. We caught there a few nice chubs and also really nice graylings. And I also remember nice evenings, mainly stories from Kai´s private life are unforgettable and unpublishable ones. John Woods from England wrote a nice article about Masterclass to the journal of his fishing club and after I find it, I will attach it to this article. And Kai also wrote an article to a Finish angling magazine.

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We had again about twenty participants and again “Benelux” and “UK” team.

I was fishing mainly in the Vltava 29P, I remember one afternoon, when after a very hot day came a short storm with heavy rain which flushed pray from trees to the water which was followed by amazing activity of fish and we caught a lot of brown trouts and brook trouts. I also remember that I explained to one group from the UK team, that they had to be very careful during wading in the water, as bottom was slimy and pools were very deep and after this speech I made one step and I slipped and fell to the deepest pool in this section and only my cap was flowing on the surface. Guys very appreciated this suggestive demonstration and after they stopped laughing, they helped me out from water

Second day I had another group from UK and there were two women. Susan Sissons, member of Lake Ladies Team of England, and Chandra Brown. I remember a lovely afternoon, when we were sitting with Susan and her husband Paul on the boulders and trying to catch rising fish, which absolutely ignored our flies till I found in my box the right pattern (sedge size 18 with pearl tag) and we caught few nice browns.

Chandra had a special waistcoat with incorporated lifejacket with automatic system (later I found, that it is relatively common in UK), and I was fishing with her husband Robert and she was in front of us in a relatively deep pool. She hooked a good trout and when she tried to land the fish, the sensor touched the water and activated itself, Chandra flew out from water like a balloon and could not get to the bank as her legs lost contact with bottom. I and Robert could not help her, as we were laughing and could not move, finally she luckily “anchored” behind a stone and Robert said: a new bottle to the jacket costs 80 pounds

One week after the Masterclass my son František was born, so it was very good June.

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It was the first Masterclass taking part in Rožmberk. We had 23 participants and they could be divided to three groups:  “Benelux” team, “UK” team and team “Australia” traveling to the World Fly-fishing Championship in Norway. Guys from Australia had never seen grayling before, so they wanted to see that fish species and learn how to catch it and also to learn tactics for nymphing in large rivers. I remember, that we came to the Vltava river close to Dobra (Vltava 33) and they found a good grayling from the bank and one guy caught it by the really first cast.

I found during this course a good friend Robbie Bell from England. I visited Robbie the following summer during my family trip to Scotland and he also helped the Czech team as a guide during World Fly-fishing Championship held in Scotland. We spent a nice day together at Vltava 33, we caught few nice graylings and I remember that I explained to him, that grayling usually stays in the middle of the river comparing to brown trout, which prefers places close to banks, trees and stones. Except the situation, when there is a shallow part in the middle of the river and deep pool is close to the bank, like in that place in front of us. Since Robbie is a competitor and doesn´t like chattering, he said, “Really? OK Milan, lets show me the graylings”. I casted nymphs just behind a big stone close to the bank and the fish was there, lucky day…

I also met for the first time keen Belgian fishermen Mark Soncks and Paul Sinaert, who have not missed any next Masterclass.

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